Colleagues - Lee Vinsel and I are organizing a conference on maintenance, repair, and other things non-innovative. We’ve got several SIGCIS people joining us, with papers on digital archives, software, PCs, and the Internet, but we also have a range of papers on other topics, including a great opening panel and an opening keynote from Ruth Schwartz Cowan. The draft program is up, and registration is open. See below for the blurb I am sending around to various mailing lists… We hope to see you in Hoboken in April! Andy & Lee ------------- Stevens Institute of Technology is hosting a conference titled "The Maintainers" on April 7-9, 2016. The conference will feature over 40 presentations from scholars in a variety of fields, including academic historians and social scientists, as well as artists, activists, and engineers. All share an interest in the concepts of maintenance, infrastructure, repair, and the myriad forms of labor and expertise that sustain our human-built world. Presentations will cover a wide variety of technologies and practices, including software, spaceflight, trolleys, meteorology, digital archives, and the politics of funding for infrastructure. The conference keynote speaker will be Ruth Schwartz Cowan<https://hss.sas.upenn.edu/people/cowan>, Professor Emerita in the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of several books, including the pathbreaking More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technologies from the Hearth to the Microwave<http://www.amazon.com/More-Work-Mother-Household-Technology/dp/0465047327>. The conference is sponsored by the College of Arts & Letters at Stevens Institute of Technology. More information, including a draft program and registration information, is available from http://themaintainers.org/ or from Prof. Lee Vinsel (lee.vinsel@gmail.com<mailto:lee.vinsel@gmail.com>).